


Blood Will Tell

by saisei



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Graphic Description, Nonnies Made Me Do It, Torture, World of Ruin, dental horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-06-22 16:24:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15585915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saisei/pseuds/saisei
Summary: Ignis is captured while exploring a Niflheim base. Prompto has to rescue him.





	1. Chapter 1

" _Would_ you have?" Prompto remembered asking Ignis, after the battle at Valluerey and Caligo's escape. He was still jittering with nerves and terror, and he needed to be reassured that Ignis – his funny, clever, kind friend – wasn't a torturer. They'd pulled off the road at an ocean overlook, and Prompto had trailed after Ignis desperately, not even thinking of taking a commemorative photo.

Ignis had crossed his arms and stared at the shifting line where water merged with land. "Before leaving the crown city, I was not in the habit of hunting and butchering wild animals. I learned. I think it's safe to say none of us had ever killed, but goodness, are we ever proficient now." He shot Prompto a sharp glance that made him flinch in agreement. "I am aware of the latest research done on the efficacy of torture, or rather, the lack thereof. I also have a... dire paucity of information. There's something seductive about the false confidence that, unlike others, _I'd_ be able to sort truth from lies." He dragged in a breath, hands tightening on his elbows. "If it must be done, who better than I?"

"That's a crappy answer," Prompto had said. All he'd wanted was a nice, comforting _no_. 

As he paced now, terrified and listening to Ignis' interrogation over the base's loudspeakers, his mind was stuck in a loop of denial: _no, no, no, no._

He should have put his foot down when Ignis floated the idea of going to Niflheim and infiltrating the base where Ardyn had first made a recorded appearance in modern records. Ignis had sounded so sensible, saying on the one hand that Talcott was too young and inexperienced to make the trip and on the other, that he hoped Prompto's skill with Nif technology would lead to the success of the mission.

Prompto should definitely have noped strong and hard after he'd barcoded his way into this top-secret base and Ignis suggested hopefully he have a look around ( _perhaps there are more of those coffee machines_ ) after he'd set up shop in an office, headphones on as he made a copy of all data that looked, in his words, "promising". Sure, they'd both assumed the place was empty, or that they could take care of any daemons or rabid MTs lurking in the shadows. Ignis was still not back to 100%, but he could hold his own in a fight.

So they'd both been idiots to assume nothing bad would happen if Prompto went off by himself for five minutes. Ten, fifteen tops. Just around a few corners, doing a bit of his own recon, looking for cool new weapons. And canned caffeine, of course.

Neither of them had anticipated the facility being occupied by humans taking refuge from a world consumed by darkness and daemons.

The first Prompto learned of it was a sudden horrible crash right in his earbud, Ignis shouting in pain, and then a rush of unknown voices coming over the radio. He ducked into the nearest nook instinctively, every nerve screaming danger, hand clapped over the earbud like it was his lifeline. Well – Ignis' lifeline. Prompto flicked the _transmit_ button off, feeling like he was committing a betrayal.

"Is this thing on?" someone asked, right in his ear. "Hey – you here with a team?" This must have been addressed to Ignis, because when he didn't answer Prompto heard an unmistakable slap, and a sharp, shuddering gasp. "Shit," the person said. "Ande, he's blind."

"Well, that makes our job easier." A man's voice, deep and angry, and a crackle as Ignis' radio changed hands. Then Ande's voice filled Prompto's ear, loud and clear as day. "Every minute you don't surrender, your buddy here's going to hurt. He's already bleeding," he added. "But his day's about to get a lot worse."

There was a sudden grunt and a rasping scrape of metal, and then a scuffle that Prompto guessed was the sound of Ignis being pinned to the ground. And then – 

Prompto hadn't known bones could break loud enough to be heard, but they sure could, and the noises Ignis made were nauseating. After a brief pause, Prompto could hear Ignis ( _Ignis_ , of all people) plead _Please, please don't, I'm sorry_.

"Yeah, well, your buddies decided you're going to be sorry _and_ blind _and_ crippled, now," Ande said, and Prompto had to force himself not to rip the earbud out as more bones snapped apart. The mental picture he formed was of Ignis' hands (or feet – how had Ignis tried to fight them?) being crushed under heavy boots, and he felt the fires of Ifrit light deep in his belly, hot hatred boiling through him until his vision washed red.

No one hurt Ignis and lived, he thought, and began moving down the corridor purposefully. The last time he'd been on the run in a base like this he'd been terrified and soul-sick to find out what he really was. But right now, he was fine letting Noct's buddy Prompto take a backseat to the killing machine he was created to become.

He bet none of Ande's group had the barcode that gave access to all levels of security and the armories. Sucked to be them. He could hear them through the earbud, heading back to their headquarters, dragging a silent, stumbling Ignis with them. Prompto stopped at the first door console he passed and put the whole facility under lockdown, and then called up floorplans and schematics. The console complied, and then asked if he wanted environmental controls as well.

Prompto took over everything, and he grinned with savage satisfaction as he heard confused reports of this filter through his earbud.

"It's the Imperials," someone said, loud and panicked. "He brought fucking MTs."

"Get eyes out," Ande ordered. After a long moment of silence, Prompto heard him reply, "What do you mean you don't have access?"

While he argued with his people over his own comms, Prompto jittered with nerves. He might control all the cameras and sensors, but he couldn't be in two places at once – he couldn't stay put to monitor them, so he'd be running blind, straight into any of their trapped patrols. And he was now working with a very short timeframe, because Ande was going to take out all the fury Prompto was overhearing on Ignis. His piss-poor strategy was simply to make Ignis too valuable to kill, for the time being, and to get to him as fast as possible.

_Be a machine_ , Prompto reminded himself. He took a breath and started moving again. A machine with a plan, a backup plan, and a gun in each hand.

He knew his brief period of grace was up when he heard Ande end his conversation with a vicious curse.

"Guess we need to invite your Imp buddies to this party," he said. "They seem to be able to work autonomously, so why don't you call for help? You're gonna need help," he added. Prompto heard the rap of metal against metal, and a pained gasp that Ignis didn't manage to hold back.

"Oh, come on," someone said – a young man, maybe a woman. "Don't be gross again, Ande. You don't have to – "

"It works," Ande said. He sounded amused, which Prompto read as a bad, bad sign, considering how angry he was. "Bet the blind dude knows all about that."

"I'm not worth the risk," Ignis said. His voice was raw and pained, but resolute. "We have two teams here and more nearby who we can call for reinforcements."

That earned him a hard slap. "Should have kept your mouth shut," Ande said. "You're lying, and I don't really care why. I'm not interested in _talking_ to you." There was a horrible crash and the sound of parts spilling all over the floor, the woman swearing viciously under her breath. Then, louder, right into the mic. "Hello, blind man's friends." (Ha – guess the fucker _didn't_ know what he thought he did.) "If he's worth anything to you, you should come get him while he's still breathing. I assume you know where we are."

_Get me a chair,_ he added as an aside, voice muted but the mic still on. _And some – yeah._

Prompto ran, his thoughts drawn horribly to the sounds he heard in his ear: bootheel strikes on cement, Ignis being forcibly restrained after a struggle, and someone sifting through the metal parts (enough to give him flashbacks for weeks to Ardyn and the fucking torture implements that had always been kept in Prompto's line of sight). He had the plans for the base in his head and the first set of locked doors just in front of him. He grabbed a weapon and was reaching for the control console when he heard over the radio the sharp ringing tap of metal on metal, and a _scream_.

Prompto froze, stomach churning and mind white with panic, forgetting how to _breathe_ for a moment.

"There," Ande said. "That's better. I like when you _look_ at me like a normal person."

Another tap; another strangled scream; a wet garble of desperate, unintelligible words.

Prompto was empty, unthinking, inhuman. He coded the doors open and shot everyone on the other side while they were registering the shock that he was just a skinny blond kid in a knitted cap, and not a phalanx of robot warriors. He killed the ones that weren't dead yet as he walked through, quick bullets through the head that part of him insisted they didn't deserve. 

Whether or not he could or would kill another human being had been something Prompto wrestled with academically when he joined the Crownsguard, and then practically, once they were caught up in the war and people were actively trying to kill _him_. On the one hand, he was bolstered by the knowledge that the gods didn't care – there'd be a hell of a lot less death and war without any gods in the first place. On the other, he had to live with his decisions and revisit them in nightmares.

Still, he felt no uncertainty now, just a hollow relief that he'd been fast enough – he hoped – that they hadn't had time to report they were under attack. and made himself take one of their radios, even though it was sticky with blood.

Then he ran again.


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm a patient man," Ande said, though to Prompto he sounded like a dog pacing at the end of its leash. "but your pal here's dying to know what I'm going to do next. Unfortunately, he's too tongue-tied to ask you himself. Or – are you expendable?" His voice was directed away from the mic, and he paused as if waiting for an answer. In the quiet, Prompto thought he could hear Ignis breathing, harsh but steady as a metronome. It gave him chills. "Well. If no one wants to talk to me, I guess I'll go back to work."

Prompto was tempted, _so_ very tempted, to reply. His brain served up a fantasy where he was able to keep Ande talking and stop him from hurting Ignis, but he knew silence was his best protection. Silence kept him an unknown, faceless army of MTs; Ande would keep Ignis alive as a bargaining chip and because he feared losing whatever control Ignis had over that imaginary army. Revealing what he actually was would shatter the illusion.

Even though he was biting his lips bloody to keep from begging Ande not to do what he was doing, to leave Ignis alone, to stop.

When the next weak scream filled his ears, he had swiped his way into an armory; by the next, he had found another console and pinpointed three locations he thought they were likely to have holed up in, based on how long it had taken them to relocate. He decided to start with the most defensible, and cleared his way with grenades. He only caught one patrol that way (they died in such agony that he threw up), but he could hear panic on Ande's end and he felt vicious selfish pleasure that Ande had to lay off with his meticulous torture to give orders, recall his people, try and raise the missing on his comms. They were reporting assaults from both above and below and were trying to force open the access shaft to the main hanger, which meant – 

– unless Prompto was way off base –

– they weren't in the commissary, he'd bet his life on it. Ignis' life, even. He backtracked to the ladders leading to the catwalks and headed for the eastern robotic factory control room, forcing himself to go slow enough that his footfalls were nearly silent. 

He hit up both of the consoles on his way there, testing his theory by making the lights flicker and listening with fierce satisfaction to the panicked reaction he heard. Calling up schematics, he found himself a way in: the control room was a couple stories off the cavernous workfloor, overlooking it and all the entrances, but ventilation shafts ran behind the walls and under the floors. Sure, they were dotted with massive lethal fans, all the better to pull in the icy outdoor air for cooling, but Prompto had control of environmental. He figured he could afford to shut down air circulation; he'd have days before not being able to breathe became a problem.

Plus, there'd be a lot more air to go around, he thought, as he took out two guys peering nervously around a corner (nice clean headshots). Seeing as only he and Ignis would be breathing.

He was starting to get that numb feeling, like it was past midnight and he'd been gaming for hours, when the real world started to flatten into a mirror of what he saw on the screen and his brain tried to figure out what buttons to mash to get his energy drink to his mouth or to dis Noct.

Thinking about Noct was a mistake, and Prompto made himself stop and empty his head, stick those thoughts in the same deep part of his brain where he was filtering the threats and ragged screams that he wasn't listening to anymore. He needed focus to get through the mission and clear this level. Humanity... just got in the way.

He found the access panel he was looking for and unbolted it as quietly as he could; he'd have to leave it off and give away his route, but hopefully no one'd notice for a while yet. He estimated he wouldn't even need ten minutes, and checked his weapons one more time, counting the comforting weight of bullets and grenades before letting himself run.

He had to hold the schematic in his head, because the vents were dark and full of random twists and drops. The metal under his feet didn't make as much noise as he'd expected, likely muffled by either stone or insulation. The air inside was dry and frigid, burning in his lungs, piercing his eyes as they strained to see by feeble torchlight.

"Hello, friends," Prompto heard over the main loudspeakers, faint and echoing, and he tried to tune it out. "You're probably wondering what I'm going to do now that I'm done with his hands. Let me know if you have any requests. His next fifteen minutes are really going to suck."

Prompto would have been worried if he was paying attention, or if he hadn't been just a ladder and a short dirty crawl away from his destination. But he was, and he was, and he slithered into place right between the intake fan and the ceiling vent only to find himself eye-to-eye with some kid on a stepladder with a screwdriver, staring at him through the slats.

_boom-boom-pow_

Just like the arcade after school, Prompto was _smooth_ as he braced himself and picked them off one by one, nice clean shots fanning out blood. A couple of women, three guys in white parkas, the man standing over Ignis with a hammer, the people who came running in the door.

He dropped down, stumbling over the kid's body where it was tangled up with the ladder, and went out the doorway onto the metal catwalk outside. There were others down below, scrambling to rally against the attack, so he switched out weapons and cleared them out. Then he went back inside, made sure everyone was dead, and said, "Hey."

Ignis couldn't answer because of the belt around his head gagging him, and because nails had been driven into his teeth. But he turned his head towards Prompto, who felt his heart sink.

He'd hoped Ignis would be passed out and not have any idea what was happening. What Prompto had just done, or Ande before him.

Ignis was trying to say something, but all that came out was a raw scratching sound, and he managed to look frustrated even through the bloody horror of it all. He nodded his head sideways, at the desk his hands hand been nailed to, and then looked back at Prompto like he really, really needed him to get what he was saying.

It reminded Prompto of Luna's puppies, and he'd have teared up if he wasn't so deep in his inhuman headspace. Instead, he looked over the desktop impatiently – a mess of tools and electronic parts, tape and bullet casings, paper schematics...

 _He's blind and disoriented and hurting_ , Prompto reminded himself. _You're looking for something but odds are he's not real accurate right now._

There was a military-issue first aid kit that looked like it'd been swept off the desk, displaced by the crap dumped out by a massive toolbox. Stuff Prompto figured he'd need later, bandages, headache pills, and other things he wasn't sure of. Refills for – he glanced around quick – that tranq gun over there, right, and he forced himself take a good look at Ignis.

"Gonna check your pupils," he said, and Ignis blinked his good eye in response. The eyelid on the left had been pinned up with a bent nail run through his eyebrow, and the eye was filmed with drying blood. The right was dilated fully underneath the scarring, as wide as the left, which Prompto knew got stuck like that when Ignis went blind. "O-kay, want me to hit you up with a generic antidote, or break out one of the remedies? One blink for antidote, two for remedy."

And it just figured that Ignis would go for the economical option, even though he'd probably been drugged at least twice – there and here – to keep him down. Prompto yanked the flask out of the armiger. "Fair warning," he said, cracking it down, "if this doesn't work I'm going straight for the big guns."

Under his hands, Ignis' shoulders tightened like he'd been petrified – or was forcing himself to keep still. Regret was 20/20 and Prompto was hit by the ugly thought that maybe whatever drug and-or poison cocktail Ignis had been shot up with had kept the pain down, or at least relaxed him somehow. Waking up to sudden lucidity while still stabbed full of metal must be _nightmarish_ , and guess what, he was the one who was hurting Ignis now.

"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it, but he took a deep breath and packed all his feelings down, steeling himself for what was at hand. He thought he could hold off on curatives – another antidote, a remedy, however many potions or elixirs it took – until Ignis was capable of asking for himself, so making that happen was a top priority. Right after he undid the grossest violations.

He lined up the first-aid kit, some tape, and all the tools he'd need: the bolt cutter, wire snips, a couple pairs of pliers. Niflheim-made, which meant high quality. Niflheim-made and probably stolen from military bases; armor and mecha factories used some of the most advanced precision tech Prompto'd ever seen.

"Ready, steady," Prompto said, dragging in a deep breath and forcing himself to think of this as nothing more than some DIY project gone horribly wrong. "Eye," he said, because that was the easiest place to start. So hideous and so wrong but also simple soft tissue. He snipped the nail – long, thin, flexible; for plasterboard, maybe – threaded through Ignis' eyelid short, pulling the skin up as far as he could, and threaded the remainder back out through the holes it'd made, holding his breath the whole time. He really, really didn't want to stab Ignis in the eye, even if it was the one that didn't work any more. He liked Ignis' eyes. He was done before Ignis could flinch, and Prompto taped gauze over the wounds quickly, before too much goop leaked out. 

"Let's get you loose," he went on, "then I'll do your teeth." He opted for snipping the heads off the nails through Ignis' hands over trying to pry them out of the desktop, and then just raised Ignis' hands up and off. Easy-peasy, if he ignored the blood and the fact that he could feel broken bones beneath hot swollen flesh, see how fingers and wrists were bent and misaligned. Boot-crushed, going by the telltale bruising.

The nails jutting up from Ignis' teeth would have to be pulled before Prompto could remove the leather belt that forced his mouth open, and he thought Ignis understood by the way he tried to brace himself, his breathing shuddering into a semblance of control.

"I'll be fast," Prompto promised. They weren't the same kind of heavy-gauge nails he'd just snipped, praise the Six; these were tiny, brads maybe, or staples, like you'd use to put up a poster or for decoration. "And if you want to pass out, that'd be great, honestly – no, no, nope, no talking, no moving. Pretend this is a shitty video game with bad graphics and annoying music."

As he spoke, he pressed two fingers down on the first lefthand molar, one on each side of the nail, and gave a steady experimental tug with the pliers. The trick, he found, was to match the pull-up pressure with the push-down pressure, and to keep the nail straight. No wiggling, no pausing. Objectively, the nail wasn't that snug; it slid free easier than he'd expected. Blood and... stuff came up out of the empty hole, and Prompto swiped it away with his bandanna.

"Seriously dumb game," he reminded Ignis. He couldn't tell if Ignis was paying attention; his eye kept flickering the way it had when he'd first lost his sight, desperate, trying to find some way to see through the miasma occulting his vision. Prompto moved his fingers and the pliers, and for a moment Ignis' wild stare fixed right on him, before sliding away. 

"The save points are only after the boss fights, and every time you try to pick shit up you jump instead."

Another one out. Then another. Ignis' teeth were cracked and chipped around the holes, but Noct – present here and now through his magic – would never stand for that. Prompto pulled out half of one split molar by accident, but Ignis – shaking now like he had a fever – didn't seem to notice, so Prompto just pushed the chunk back into place, the broken root wobbly in the socket.

"The cut scenes are buggy, so the player character freezes after they end for five whole seconds and gets mauled by lizards."

Prompto had a fucking _technique_ by the time he pulled the last nail free, and he owed the hugest debt of gratitude to his Crownsguard weapons trainer. His thoughts were a mess, but his hands, even stained with blood, were steady like a rock.

"I'm taking the belt out," he warned. "Don't bite down and don't barf." Ignis' good eye fixed in his direction, narrowed to glare balefully. "I don't want you hurting _more_ , okay? I just need another minute and I swear I'll fix this."

Ignis' nostrils flared and then, under Prompto's fingers he felt his jaw relax, trusting him, giving him permission. Prompto's eyes were gritty and dry, but that was nearly enough to make him tear up even though he knew crying would waste time he didn't have.

Prompto undid the buckle at the back of Ignis' head, wincing as he needed to pull tighter to do so, and eased the leather away from the angry red marks it'd dug into the sides of Ignis' mouth, angling it to try not to hit any damaged teeth. He mostly succeeded, and once it was out he cupped Ignis' jaw to help him close his mouth partway, his other hand encouraging him to lean forward so the blood and spit and flakes of enamel dribbled into his bandanna and not down Ignis' raw throat. Ignis protested the indignity, and Prompto leaned in for just a moment to rest his forehead against Ignis', his need for contact in that moment greater than any hunger or thirst.

"There's literally nothing you could do that would make me respect you less," he said, his own voice cracking. "You're fucking amazing. I'm going to do your hands now. You want to hear about my Ignis fanclub, or more about the world's worst video games?"

After a short pause, Ignis said something that might have been _game_. The word came out in bloody bubbles. Prompto stepped back and wiped them away, and then launched into a half-assed rant about boss fights he'd lost – repeatedly – as he removed the nails that stuck out from under Ignis' fingernails like some shiny, exotic, nightmarish jewelry. Extreme piercing. He was starting to feel like the world around him was peeling back and away, leaving him numb and heavy. Which probably wasn't good, but none of this was good, and wishful thinking couldn't make it go away, even though he'd been wishing so hard. Ignis' hands were deformed and so swollen the skin was going shiny, and Prompto was hurting him just by holding each finger steady. There was less blood oozing from his nailbeds than there'd been in his mouth; Prompto wasn't sure that was a good thing.

He forced his own hands to work like precision machines and pulled each of the nails free, gentle but firm, keeping up a steady stream of babble to drown out Ignis' involuntary noises of pain. As soon as the last one was out he dropped the pliers, letting himself gasp in relief. With Noct's magic, everything would heal good as new. Prompto had faith in that, so much faith.

"Hey Iggy," he said, cupping Ignis' hot swollen cheeks in his hands. "I miss anything?"

Ignis was barely hanging on to consciousness – Prompto was awed all over again by his iron control – but after a moment he breathed out, "No." And then, because he was constitutionally incapable of being un-Ignis-like in any situation, he said, "If anyone asks," enunciating as clearly as he could through what Prompto knew was agonizing pain, "tell them we fought tooth and nail."

"That's horrible," Prompto blurted out. " _Fuck_. If you make me laugh, I'll cry like a baby."

"Sorry," Ignis said, and then added a heartbreaking, choked-up, "please."

Prompto let go with one hand and reached into the armiger. _More curatives_ , he thought in dizzy sing-song. He got the first flask in hand and cracked it, never before this relieved to watch the haze of healing magic wash over someone. Noct, when he returned, would forgive him – for using up potions, but not for letting this happen. Prompto would never forgive himself. He had smashed three of their precious stock, one after another, and had a fourth in hand when Ignis halted him with his palm (whole and not broken, praise the Six) pressed to Prompto's chest and a shake of his head.

After a moment studying Ignis, looking for any sign that he was lying about being one-hundred percent, Prompto carefully put the bottle back. Ignis didn't say anything, and Prompto twisted the bands around his wrist to keep from begging him to end the suspense. _This is very much about him and not about you_ , he reminded himself.

He watched Ignis straighten his hands, one finger at a time, before curling them into tight fists, rotating his wrists and then his shoulders, his expression one of intense concentration. Then he ran fingers over his teeth, the tops and the sides, spitting blood and two molars into the bandanna with a sigh. Finally he pulled off the gauze and touched his left eye gingerly, the pads of his fingers skimming over his eyelid, which had dropped down like normal, hiding his eye away.

"Good as new," he said, trying and absolutely failing to sound hearty and reassuring. He heard that failure himself and winced, then bowed his head. "Might I trouble you to look?"

"No trouble at all." Prompto reached out and caught Ignis' left hand, smoothing it between his own. Ignis was cold as the Glacian. "Though – you have _got_ to use another potion if you need it, or an antidote, because otherwise I'll never be able to live with myself."

"I wouldn't want that," Ignis said, not sarcasm but weary honesty.

"Glad we're on the same page," Prompto told him, and began cataloging every scar and crooked bone he saw. He didn't, personally, have intimate knowledge of Ignis' body, but Ignis was able to confirm what was normal, for him. That he'd always had a chip out of one of his incisors ( _the price one pays defeating Gladio in hand-to-hand_ ) or slightly crooked middle and pointer fingers ( _a family trait_ ). The sockets where his teeth had failed to re-root were clean and healed, and Prompto fished out the last slivers of enamel that remained.

When he was done, Ignis pulled himself back from the trance-like state he'd fallen into.

"Help me up," Ignis said, sounding nearly himself, traces of typical impatience lacing the words. Prompto knew an order when he heard one, and made himself useful, Ignis' arm hanging his weight from Prompto's shoulders and Prompto with a good grip on Ignis' waist. Prompto steered them around the bodies on the way to the door. Mostly. They had to step over one that was curled face-down, and as soon as the door was open and they could gulp in cold fresh air, Ignis twisted to the side and gagged, his stomach forcing up blood and bile while he shuddered miserably.

"It's okay," Prompto said, holding him steady, as if that would mean anything against all that had happened.

"You killed all of them?" Ignis asked when he could speak again.

Prompto shrugged. There wasn't much to say about that, and Prompto couldn't tell if Ignis was horrified or pleased or... simply reporting the facts. Niflheim was cold; daemons were ugly; Prompto was a murderer, many times over.

"Yeah," he said. He helped Ignis straighten and poured him a cup of snowmelt water from his flask. Ignis winced at how cold it was still; probably his teeth were crazy sensitive right now.

"My apologies," Ignis said after a moment, handing the cup back.

"I'd do it again. I channeled my inner MT and all."

"Still." Ignis sounded disapproving. "I am so very sorry you had to. And you must be aware that the last thing anyone thinks is that you're empty." 

"Don't," Prompto blurted out, and then, because he was embarrassed and so cold that he could feel the numbness of it radiating out from his bones: "Let's get our stuff and go."

Ignis acquiesced to the first, but not the second. "We traversed all this way for information. I _bled_ for it."

"I killed half an army for it," Prompto agreed morosely. His clothes were disgusting; he smelled like a slaughterhouse.

They backtracked to the room where Ignis' equipment was still mostly set up. Prompto swore up and down that they'd go looking for the missing pieces tomorrow if only he could get some sleep _now_. Ignis threw up again, even though there weren't any bodies here, and shamefacedly admitted to Prompto that he thought, on consideration, he should use a remedy.

"Dude," Prompto said, his mood downswing hitting him hard enough he couldn't even be angry with Ignis for putting his own needs dead last, right after packing up the laptop cables; he just felt really, really sad. "Yeah. Of course."

He didn't point out that Ignis could have grabbed it himself. He liked feeling useful, and he especially liked how the potion erased all the small things about Ignis that had been off. The erratic breathing, the pallor, the blue tinge to his lips, the way he'd needed Prompto to guide him like he hadn't in ages. Helping Ignis made him feel like maybe he wasn't _all_ wrong, and he appreciated it, but not as much as he appreciated Ignis clear-headed and probably not dying of poison.

He checked a console and found the nearest dormitory, with a room that on inspection didn't show any signs of recent use. They barricaded themselves in for the night; it was cozy, in a way. Prompto used his powers to turn on the lights and the water, and they shared a tepid shower before Prompto shooed Ignis out of the open stall (well – tap on the wall in the corner, really) to get the bed ready while he scrubbed bloodstains out of their clothes as best he could.

Prompto had told Ignis that they were sleeping together or else (or else Prompto wouldn't be able to hold himself together one minute longer, but he didn't need to add that part; Ignis seemed to understand), and he watched Ignis painstakingly zip their sleeping bags together and place them over a pile of all the mattresses, laid out on top of each other. Neither of them had steady hands at this point, but at least Ignis' were whole and functioning, now.

Prompto didn't know how to reconcile that with what he knew, what he'd heard and seen. Ignis looked perfectly normal, not at all like he'd just been tortured over live radio. And Ignis must know what he was thinking, because Prompto's voice gave him away – too bright and fake, a bit too obviously masking hysteria. Ignis had his own memories that no potion could ever erase, and he excelled at extrapolation.

They split a can of cold soup in silence for dinner, and then settled in to sleep.

"I refuse to let this change me," Ignis said, in the dark.

"Good," Prompto said. He had appointed himself big spoon, curling protectively around Ignis' back. He had one hand positioned so he could either hang on to Ignis' waist or check whether his heart was still beating, and with that for comfort, he was falling fast into sleep.

"Nor should it change you."

Prompto pretended not to hear. He didn't know how to answer that, but he woke himself up with nightmares and Ignis patted his arm wearily. Prompto felt like a creep as he interlaced his fingers with Ignis' but he did so anyway, clinging until he faded back into sleep.

The next day Ignis insisted on finishing the work he'd begun. Ignis wouldn't let Prompto go off on his own to look for their missing stuff, so they spent most of the morning picking gingerly through day-old carnage. Prompto totally got why bodies in video games mostly dissolved after a few gory seconds; the reality of having them just lie there until they rotted was hideous, but he wasn't about to suggest digging graves in the frozen ground.

When they had everything they needed, Ignis led them back to the room where he'd first set up. If bad memories were bugging him, he didn't let on aside from the inability to wear headphones or to put his back to the door, but Prompto was jittery, flinching at every noise and pacing while Ignis was trying to concentrate, driving him nuts.

They had to bunk down there one more night, and Prompto barely slept at all. He'd taken an Ebony machine apart with all his restless energy, and they'd both been drinking coffee all day – a simple, beautiful ritual that conjured nostalgia for better times, and one Prompto's body was not prepared for. In the darkness of their room he saw faces like ghosts, flashing up before him, and the way his ears rang in the silence sounded like metal on metal, tap-tap-tapping. Ignis slept like a pro, which Prompto was both crazy grateful for (sleep was the great healer, right?) and resented, because if Ignis could be so... normal, then what did that make Prompto?

Fucked up, he supposed. 

*

A few days later, when the base was far behind them, Ignis was pulling on his gloves as he was dressing when he gave an involuntary yelp, doubling over to curl protectively around his hand.

"Show me," Prompto demanded instantly, shoving and tugging until he had Ignis' hand in his own. Two of his fingernails were peeling up, attached only by ragged strips of skin; a third had been ripped off entirely by the glove. Prompto described what he saw as gently as he could, the nailbeds welling with blood, and Ignis insisted that the injury was nothing that a potion should be wasted on. Keeping a hold on Ignis, Prompto grabbed their stolen first aid kit and started bandaging.

Secure in the knowledge that Prompto was obeying his wishes, Ignis allowed himself to break, just a little. "My hands," he said, voice very tightly controlled. "I need my hands to _see_."

"I know," Prompto said, helplessness making the words high-pitched and thin. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I – I left you alone, I should _never_ – "

"I assumed you were just outside," Ignis said. They'd been tip-toeing around how everything bad that happened was because Prompto hadn't been careful enough; Prompto felt only relief as the dam cracked, knowing it had all been his fault. "That you'd come in any second and – it was foolish of me to hesitate. I was... disoriented." _Poisoned_ , Prompto translated; confused and disoriented, fighting against the enervation of his own body. "They," his tongue flicked out to wet his lips, "some of them sounded like children."

It's said like a query, but Prompto's certain Ignis isn't questioning his own perception. "They were. Yeah." But a kid with a gun or a crossbow was still a threat, he didn't say; he knew his own guilt, he didn't need the false veneer of justification.

Ignis nodded. "I hesitated," he repeated, "for that reason." Prompto made a face as he finished bandaging the last of Ignis' fingers. He didn't want just part of the blame: it was _his_ , and he was an only child, he'd never been good at sharing. "When I was... in that chair, I remember being angry at you, as if you had the power to make him stop and you were withholding it." He swallowed hard, and trailed his fingers down Prompto's arm until he could hold his hand in bandaged fingers. "I am sure you understand that I was in no way in my right mind at the time, and I certainly don't think so now."

Prompto kept his hold on Ignis' hand as he scooted in closer, wrapping his arms around Ignis like that had any power of protection. "I know what I've done and didn't do," he said, feeling the words out and taking care that they were true. "I don't need apologies, I just have to know that you're alive and – " he stopped. "Nope, that's it. You, alive, to be there when Noct returns." Prompto pressed his forehead against Ignis' shoulder. "I'll teach you how to clean a gun, later. That always makes me feel, I don't know, centered. Calm." He took a steady breath. "Plus, my guns need cleaning."

"I do need weapons practice," Ignis said, after considering the offer. He was facing forward, back straight, as if glaring down the future, but his other hand settled on Prompto's shoulder. "I need to be... capable, for Noct, when he returns."

Like Prompto would or could deny him anything.

"You got it, Iggy."

"I shan't cry over this," he added, like a warning.

Prompto thought that sounded like an unhealthy coping mechanism, but what did he know about what worked for Ignis? As far as he knew, Ignis hadn't cried over being blinded or losing Noct, either.

"Why would you?" he asked anyway. "You're still standing. No one's managed to keep you down, not Ardyn, not the gods themselves, not that motherfucker Ande."

"Whatever doesn't kill me," Ignis suggested, his mouth quirking into a tentative smirk that sharpened from fragile to wicked as Prompto watched.

"Eh," Prompto said, just to annoy, and was rewarded with Iggy's one good eye focusing fiercely in his direction. "Hard to improve on perfection."

"Indeed."

Prompto didn't believe in telepathy, but he _knew_ what Ignis' next words were going to be. "Don't you dare," he said, slapping his hand over Ignis' mouth, catching a laugh and two words in his palm:

"Nailed it."


End file.
